NEWSChristie Brinkley Reveals How She Fell in Love With Billy Joel 31 Years After Divorce: He Was a 'Physically Hot and Charismatic Man'
Christie Brinkley detailed the story of how she fell in love with Billy Joel in her memoir.
April 16 2025, Published 11:40 a.m. ET
Christie Brinkley loved Billy Joel for the longest time — and now she’s ready to tell all about their epic love.
In her new memoir, Uptown Girl, which releases on Tuesday, April 29, the model details the story of how she met and fell in love with the "We Didn’t Start the Fire" singer.
Christie Brinkley detailed the story of how she fell in love with Billy Joel in her memoir.
"When I heard him sing on stage, I found myself undeniably attached to this physically hot and charismatic man," she spilled in a new interview.
The former couple first met back in 1983 at a dive motel bar in St. Barts, where he was playing the piano.
"He definitely didn’t look like a rock star," Brinkley, 71, admitted of the "Piano Man" artist she eventually fell "hopelessly in love with."
Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley have a daughter named Alexa Ray.
"The man was sunburned to a crisp, his face the same color as cranberries and unctuous with oil, which he’d undoubtedly slathered on to soothe the burn, topped by what I like to call ‘the Long Island bubble': a carapace of curly shellacked hair popular in the 1980s in parts of suburban New York," she described in her book.
Brinkley even admitted she struggled with his name at first, unsure if it was Billy Joel or Billy Joe.
Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley got married in 1985.
They dated for two years before getting married in March 1985. Brinkley said the award-winning artist made her laugh "like you couldn’t believe," and they even created silly nicknames for themselves: "Bada Bing and Bada Boom."
Cooking dinner, in particular, was always a fun time.
"We were the biggest, greatest Italians making Italian food. Si, Christie …. And then we’d start dancing...." she explained in her tome, noting that they were, at heart, just two "teenagers falling in love."
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Christie Brinkley wrote about Billy Joel in her upcoming memoir, 'Uptown Girl.'
Joel, 75, courted her with traditional gestures such as flowers, notes, poems and especially songs.
"He was going into the recording studio and he was writing all these songs and saying 'This one’s for you.' How could I not fall in love with him?" she gushed in her interview.
Joel penned the now-iconic tune "Uptown Girl," inspired by Brinkley and their whirlwind romance. The National Lampoon’s Vacation actress even starred in the music video for the track, which was included on his An Innocent Man album. The process of filming the video took place on a steamy summer evening with some friends.
"The director kept saying 'More hoity-toity Christie,'" she joked.
Christie Brinkley said Billy Joel was a 'physically hot and charismatic man.'
Brinkley gave birth to their daughter, Alexa Ray Joel, in 1985, but they got divorced in 1994 due to the singer's alcohol issues.
"To be clear," she wrote, "I never wanted to end things with Billy. But his drinking was bigger than the both of us."
Christie believed the relationship wasn't functioning the way she wanted it to, and the loneliness surrounding that reality was too painful to bear.
Christie Brinkley talks about how she met Billy Joel in her upcoming memoir, 'Uptown Girl.'
Although they lead different romantic lives now (Christie is single while Billy is married to Alexis Roderick), they remain cordial. They don't see each other often, since he primarily resides in Florida and she lives in Sag Harbor. However, when he comes to visit Alexa, he will come inside her home to say hello.
Alexa even told her dad about Christie's upcoming book, which he didn't seem fazed by.
"He’s like, 'Sounds good, no problem,'" Christie recalled.
People spoke to Christie about her book.
